Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Fuck off, that's
a step hit on, stay lost, goshoot. Here's your hosts, Jesse
sup Here and Victor Nuno Fantasy Hockey Live back to talk fantasy hockey draft around
the corner. And so I am Jesse Severe fan Tracks and joining me a
man who's ready to draft, if he hasn't already drafted all the teams that
exist in fantasy hockey. It is Victor Nuno, Dapper prospects. Victor,
how you doing. I'm doing well, Jesse. It's yeah, there are
so many drafts going on. In fact, I got looped into doing a
couple more leagues with the ep Rinkside team. Cam was like, Hey,
we're gonna do this fantasy league. Gus as one of the Fantasy contributors.
I feel like I have to, right, you gotta be part of that.
And then the strangest thing that happen and I have never had the first
overall pick in a league since ever, So I got Connor McDavid, which
is both great and terrible because then you're waiting. This league has twenty four
teams, so you're waiting several dozen picks for the next one. And I
feel like the teams that get McDavid don't usually win right like that. This
seems like a thing like I don't see that happening very often. It didually
the teams close for the middle, like four through nine or something. What
do you think about that, Jesse, And how are you? Yeah,
I'm great, I'm great. And that is an interesting point, I would
say. And I didn't do any kind of analysis this last year, but
I have to think that the teams that got Connor McDavid last year probably fared
a little bit better than they had in previous years because Connor McDavid put up
the video game numbers as opposed to just the insanely great numbers last year.
But nonetheless, yeah, it's a long wait. And I hear people talking
about liking to pick on quote the wheel, being able to take two picks.
I think that's insane. I'm totally with you. I'm much rather.
I much prefer when I can take in the middle of a round. And
no, I never have to watch like all the guys disappear before I pick.
It's never that long. Until I pick again. But congratulations on your
mcdaviting. Yeah, it's actually interesting because you could pick in this league in
the way Cam set it up. You could pick any player like any options,
and so I was basically going Connor either way. I actually debated taking
the Dard, but I was like, ah, that's crazy at one point
one. But of course Cam took him at six overall, so yeah,
he wasn't gonna last that long. Wait, this was a redraft or a
dynasty. It's like a soft dynasty. There are only four minor spots,
so not that many. But it's an inaugural draft, so you could take
anyone, so anyone's eligible. So there haven't been too many young, unproven
guys yet. But we're still in the first round. It's saying forever because
there are people all over the world for that work at EP so a lot
of people are Norway and Sweden, Finland, so the times are a little
weird. It's gonna it's gonna take a long time, but it's gonna be
fun. It's yeah, it's hard if you're on the other side of the
world to keep up with hockey conversations. One place you could do it,
though, Victor. One place you could do it is in our discord because
there are people from all over the world in there, and I imagine awake
at insane hours. There's just all kinds of posting in there. I would
recommend hopping in there if you want a community of hockey fans to go back
and forth with all your and it is free. That's what we do.
Join the discord by email and Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com or hit
us up on x at fan Hockey Life is me at Victor Nuno twelve is
Victor. We'll get you the code that gets you in for free. That's
all there is to it, Victor. That is not the only thing though,
that is with this podcast. We also have a Patreon. Why don't
you tell people what we have available there? Yeah, lots of great stuff
there. We have our Patron Priority channel where you can get really extensive exclusive
answers and you can as a patron DMI if a lot of people are finding
that their team league mates everywhere, but you can get one on one personalized
advice. You can also get our patron casts, our patron our prospect rankings.
There's top ten lists that are being done so there's a lot of great
stuff and the Tidy, which is our league that we're doing, is full
now, but you can get your name on the waiting list if you want
to compete. Next year we'll open up another division. It'll be super fun,
so definitely get in on that. And if you just enjoy the support
and want to help us out, that would be great because we do pay
for a lot of subscriptions to bring you all this content, so Patreon dot
com Flash Fantasy Hockey Life, that would be fantastic. We are happy to
be part of the fan Tracks podcast network, but more to the point today,
we are also if you hadn't heard, part of the daub podcast network,
you can find all our cool stuff there. Victor writes for dab Or
Prospect and it is Dabber Day today because Victor, You've got an additional very
special announcement to make, don't you. That's right. Yeah. Definitely happy
to still be over at Dauber and helping out with the editing that's going on
there and contributing in a couple different ways, and love all the work done
at Dauber and having Mike Clifford on today is one of the main writers there.
So they wanted to help us out and do an extra giveaway for the
guide. So if you have for some reason not checked out the Dauber Guide
yet, it's a little late, but it's all good. You can still
do that, and we're giving away five more Dauber Ultimate Pack giveaways. These
are really fantastic. You get the prospects, the main fantasy Guide, you
get the spreadsheet with all the ranks, so definitely do that. All you
gotta do to get this is the first five people who hear this and give
us a five star review on the podcast aggregator of your choice. That's a
new one. Obviously, send a screenshot and send it to me at Victor
Junior twelve on x or you can email us at Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail
dot com. So just give us a five s review, send it over
and I'll the first five who do that. I will send you one of
these awesome Dauber packs for listening. So definitely gotta check that out. Victor.
I sense you have something else to say before we get to the interview
today. What is it? Yeah, just one more thing. I wanted
to mention that my work has taken me up to the Vancouver area and we're
gonna meet up a bunch of us that are in leagues together, a bunch
of us that in the league that you and I that you started years ago.
I've been a lot of people are from the Vancouver areas. I've already
connected with some of them. We're going to go to a Vancouver Giants Kamloops
Blazers game, which would be fun, and so any of you that are
in the area and want to join and hang out, that would be super
fun. So this is November third through sixth ish, so if you're in
that area, hit me up. I'd love to say hi. If it
works out great, We'll be right back after this to get into some late
round picks. Very pleased to be joined today by our brethren over there at
Jobber Hockey. It is Michael Clifford aka Slim Cliffy on X. Michael.
How you doing today? Doing pretty good? Beautiful weather this weekend. We
had that hurricane land here last weekend ended up not being too bad. It
was just more a lot of rain than anything. This weekend it's just been
beautiful sunshine and nice enough weather where you can still wear shorts. Just trying
to enjoy as much of it as I can. Are you up in Wait?
Wait where did the hurricane land? I'm oblivious to this the Maritimes.
I'm in New Brunswick on the east coast. Oh okay, it veered towards
the east in the last twelve to sixteen hours or whatever, and so it
landed more Nova Scotia and we just got a lot of the rains. Bad
for Nova Scotia, but good for us. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So we're super excited to have you on. And what I asked and you
delivered is we would like some guys. We wanted to talk about some sort
of light round steals, right, so thinking redrafts, guys that are going
after around ten and when the twelve team league, So trying to mind some
value here and some guys that can be available later that might be really valuable.
And also maybe some of these guys in your keeper dynasty you might want
to trade for maybe they have some untapped hidden upside. So that's a premise
of how we want to kind of frame these. Trying to find some late
some gems for everyone, and so we'll go through these. We haven't broken
down into guys from the West and the East. So we'll start in the
West, and we'll start with one of my absolute favorite players, and that's
Bow and buy him. And he shot fifteen percent last year, which is
a pretty interesting stat from his forty two games played, burying him off established
himself with a full NHL season. He keeps getting injured, but he did
successfully increase both his time on ice and power play. Time on ice did
buy him and with that increase, just about everything else went along with it.
Well, we might expect a smidgelower on the shot percent. We it
is safe to expect to continue to grow from every other column if he can
manage a full or near full season, which has been difficult, plus the
twenty minutes plus time on ice. What do you think we can expect from
Byrom? He seems I actually know you just wrote an article about this,
if I'm not mistaken, so I know you're very familiar. And let us
know what we can maybe expect from byronim even though he's so talented, is
he ever really going to fully deliver on the goods with what he can produce?
Mike, Yeah, shameless plug time. I did have an article about
bow and Byrom up at Elite Prospects rinksidep rinkside dot com for anybody that's remember
over there, had that go up on Tuesday, And obviously the first thing
that, like you mentioned is the concussions. You just got to hope that
he's it's something that he can move past. We saw that with Sidney Crosby
a decade ago, right, It took him pretty much a year and a
half two years to get right, and then after that he never really had
issues. So let's hope it's the same thing for by him. Aside from
that, he just really jumped out at me in the twenty twenty two playoffs
on a team with Nathan McKinnon and Kale mccarr and all those guys. He
was a guy I found was noticeable basically game in and game out. And
if you dig into some of his tracking numbers, Cory Sneger tracks zone entries
and types of passes and things like that. If you look at what Byrom
does, it's he does a little bit of everything, and what he does
is exceptional. He's exceptional at entering the offensive zone with control of the puck,
which isn't something a lot of defensemen do. There are defensemen that will
move the puck out of their zone but not necessarily be the ones to carry
it in. He does that quite a bit, and that makes them almost
like a fourth forward at times more rather than a defenseman on the blue line.
I think that's why he had double digits shooting percentages in both in both
the last two seasons. He's getting himself into good shooting positions. So that's
one thing that immediately stood out for me with Byrom, And the other thing
is a lot of people might I shouldn't say a lot of people. Some
people might assume that his inflated per minute point rates right, like he doesn't
have huge point totals because he typically hasn't played huge minutes up until this season.
But on a per minute basis, he's typically been very good, like
easily a number one defenseman by production. And what's easy to think it might
just be a product of playing with Nathan McKinnon and Miko Ranton and all that,
But when I looked at his numbers, even if you take out all
the minutes he's played with Nathan McKinnon, he's still produced at a top pair
rate for defenseman. So all you're waiting for is for him to getting up
to nearly twenty two minutes last season was nice. Hopefully he can get up
to twenty three or twenty four this year. We'll find out. I have
my doubts, but we'll find out. So there's just a lot of good
here, a lot of offensive talent, and like I said, it's something
that can turn him into a fourth forward on the ice. Obviously, there
are a lot of problems in the fantasy game though, number one being Kale
mccarr. It's great that they're both on the same team. I'm sure Avalanche
fans are pretty happy with that, but it provides that immediate roadblock for power
play one time at any point in the next three or four years. Right,
So unless Kale mccarr gets seriously injured or they saw for some reason go
with a three four two defenseman set up, barronim's not getting top power play
time anytime soon. Like we're looking at twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven,
and with the NHL's increased focus on power play efficiency and power play opportunities
and all that, you need those power play points from a defenseman, like
you'll have very few real high end fantasy defenseman with nine power play points or
eleven power play points or something like that. They're all up and around twenty
five now, So until he gets that time, he won't reach his fantasy
upside. And then the other problem is his shot volume. Like he does
get himself into good shooting because Asians, but he doesn't create a lot of
shots himself, and that's a good thing for the team. I think on
a team with all that quality of forwards, you want the forwards taking the
shots, not the defenseman. But that's not what we want in the fantasy
games. So it's that divergent thing where I think Byron. I think right
now he's a top pairer defenseman and it gives Colorado arguably the best top four
defenseman in the league. But until until he starts shooting more, he won't
have a lot of value in fantasy for the next few years. And until
he can get that top power play role, he won't reach his fantasy upside.
So it's one of those things where he's just going to be a lot
more valuable in real life than he will be in the fantasy game. Yeah.
No, I totally agree with that, and it is I'm sure all
Avalanche fans and coaches are like, shoot more, right, But like you
said, he creates so many opportunities, and I agree with you too.
I think in that Cup he was the X factor. I'm not saying he
was the best player, but he was the X factor, Like he was
the one that no one could match up against because of the incredible depth and
all of that. Yeah, but I do think he has had two seasons
now very low games played, but close to a fifty point pace, and
I feel like he can He has the talent to get over that if he
shoots a little bit more, gets a little bit smid more of the power
play time, and maybe they put him up there as a fourth forward type
of slot on the power play. That's not inconceivable, but I think the
upside is there right in order to take taking him a little bit later,
you could be really rewarded. Especially. The other thing is that mccarr has
also not been someone who can stay completely healthy. Yeah, exactly, And
that's why there will be times when Barram has tremendous fantasy value because if mccarr,
let's say he pulls a hamstring and he's out for three weeks. Those
three weeks, Bain barm is probably a top fifteen fantasy defenseman, right,
it's just can you draft him knowing that maybe you get fifteen games the top
power play time and then the rest of the time he just gets very little.
It's just a matter of is there any upside to that pick? Because
I was king at his ADP and underdog Fantasy, which they do best balls,
and it's maybe it's not the best for season long fantasy gauge in gauging,
but they have done a lot of drafts, so there's some reliable ADP
data, and he's going just inside the top fifty defenseman, and I think
that's good value. But I'm wondering how much higher can he get them the
twenty fifth or thirtieth defenseman, right, even if he gets fifteen games of
top power play time, just because there are guys that will get seventy or
seventy five or eighty games of that, and even in Colorado, it's just
not enough to make up the difference. It's that thing where I don't think
it's bad value, but I don't think it's one of those guys where unless
mccarr suffers a serious injury where we're looking back at the end of the season
and wondering how did baum Byron end up the number seventh fantasy defenseman. I
don't think that's something that's going to happen. Next up Jamie Drysdale. I
can't think of the last guy, at least in my world, who went
from the chosen one to an afterthought more quickly than this Anaheim defenseman. He's
a tough one because he only played eight games last year, suffered a shoulder
injury at the beginning of the season. Surgery took him out for the year.
No points in those eight games. We do like to talk about a
couple of hot defensive prospects coming up in the rearview mirror on Anaheim who maybe
could overtake Drysdale for a role. Some would say he didn't get very much
bash, block shots, hits in his one full season prior to last year,
either touted prospect coming in to a team on the upswing. I know
a recent thirty two thought spot they were interviewing Troy Terry and he predicted that
Drysdale would be a breakout, if not the breakout on this team this year.
What do you expecting from Drysdale this year? What makes him one of
what of your targets. Yeah, I think the first thing to mention about
him is the fact that in his rookie season, when he actually did play
a lot of games, he played more minutes in a four forward, one
defenseman power play set up than anybody else on the roster. And that's when
Kevin Shattenkirk was still there. And obviously they they used Cam Fowler on the
power play. He was playing more forward one defenseman power play minutes than either
of those guys, so obviously they saw something in him, even as a
rookie two years ago, different GM, different coaching staff and all that.
So he has to prove himself all over again. But even with Kevin shaddon
Kirk at the stage that he was of his career, and with Cam Fowler
not being a high end offensive defenseman, for a rookie to step in and
take those top power play minutes right away should tell us a lot about what
that coaching staff thought of him. Now that coaching staff to get fired.
Maybe not the ideal expert opinion, but I'm always a big proponent of how
is this player being used? More than relying strictly on my scouting abilities,
because I have to assume they are going to be cases, maybe a lot
of cases where the coaching staff is going to see a lot more from the
player than I will. And if they saw power play one ability and him
as a rookie two years ago, I have to think they're going to use
him power play one again this season. Maybe it's not right out of the
gate. Maybe Cam Fowler gets sometimes get Drysdale east in under a new coach
was there's some new players that weren't around a couple of years ago, those
types of things. But I certainly expect by the end of the season for
Drysdale to have the most power play minutes per game of anybody on this team.
And he's just one of those guys that can do it all at such
a young age, and not all of it is too an elite level yet,
but when you see the building blocks starting, he's good in transition,
he has good playmaking data. He was solid defensively even on even as a
rookie on a pretty terrible Ducks team. There was just a lot of good.
Not a ton of great, but just a lot of good. And
when you have a lot of good as a rookie defenseman on a bad team
like that, I think that speaks volumes as well him playing as well as
he did as a rookie, and I think when you talk about forgotten prospects,
I think part of it is you're playing in Anaheim, right. The
Anaheim Ducks have just been a very bad team for about four or five years
now. They're on the West Coast, games at eleven thirty at night where
I live ten thirty Eastern, So there's just not a lot of people that
season. If you're even if you're a big hockey fan, if you have
to get up for work at six in the morning, you're not staying up
until one am to watch the Anaheim Ducks, you know what I mean.
I just think a lot of people just haven't weren't able to watch him play.
And it's tough to heap praise on players for a bottom five team in
the league, no matter how well they play. So I think it's a
confluence of things. Where he was a rookie, so obviously he won't get
as much shine as maybe some veterans. It was a bad team, there's
been some tumultuous offseason stuff between the coaches and the GMS and all that.
I think there's just been so much stuff going on, being with him only
playing eight games last year, it's easier to forget about him. But I
guess I agree with Troy Terry. I think by the end of the season,
people are going to look back and wonder how they missed this breakout season
from Jamie Drysdale coming by the same token as you mentioned when we were talking
about Ball and Byram, and again here with Drysdale is the peripheral numbers aren't
there yet, and that's a that's a big problem in fantasy. But if
you have goals, assist power, play, points, shots, hits,
and blocks, peripherals are half the categories in your league, right. He
can't be a negative drag there and expect to have a lot of fantasy values.
I think he could break out and have the forty five point season or
something like that this year. I'm just not sure that the peripherals would be
there for a really good fantasy season in those multiicat formats anybody that's playing points
only leagues. Like I said, I do think he can have a forty
five point season. I was just looking at my projections right before we came
on. I have him for forty one and I think there's upside beyond that.
It's just a matter of Kenny bring the shots and the blocks and the
hits. We didn't see that in his rookie season, we didn't see much
of it in his brief stint last year. We had to see it before
we can believe it, and young guys will grow into that role. But
he's one of those guys where I wouldn't be shocked if he has forty five
points, but he's not a top forty defenseman in multiicat leagues because he just
won't put up the peripherals to do it. Definitely always an issue with Drysdale,
and yeah, I'm eager to see how he does. He has it's
been hard to separate the terribleness of the Ducks with the potential of Drysdale,
so I'm emager to see. Hopefully that will change. But one guy who
does usually bring the PRIs is the next guy we're going to talk about,
and that's Naz and Cadre. And a lot has been said about Calgary season
last year, breaking in all the about all the wrong ways it could have.
It's hard to address players on that roster without acknowledging a coaching change,
which seems to be in that positive. But from a dynasty perspective, the
supporting cast round Cadre continue to hold someone certainty, I would say, most
substantially the powerplay one linement alias Lindholm. There's some lesser known quantities that may
be able to crack the lineup soon that I'm excited about, like Peltier and
Coronado both could get some time on Cadre's wing. Last season, Cadre played
all eighty two games for only the second time in his career, and where
his points were points per game were effectively right around his career average of point
six eight. And the new and a year of building coming to you with
Hubertou and Anderstand on the power play, maybe that can improve a little bit.
But what do you think we can expect from Caudri in his second year
wearing that see in Calgary. Yeah, I'm glad you had mentioned that he
just went pretty much right back to career norms, because that was the first
thing I was going to say. If you look at his monster season in
Colorado, the twenty one twenty two season, the big jump was in the
assists. It's not like he had in the forty three goal season or whatever.
Right, he didn't even get to the thirty goal mark. The big
thing was that he got to fifty nine assists, which was like thirty assists
clear of his previous career I or something like that. Last year was just
returned down to normal. The reason I want to talk about Cadre is just
where his ADPs are Over on Underdog Fantasy, he's going as the thirty fifth
center, which, if you want to gauge it by other positions gone,
he's probably going outside the top one hundred and twenty five picks. If you
look over on ESPN, they have him as one hundred and thirty first forward
off the board. And we think of last year as like a down year
for him or whatever. He did only score twenty four goals despite playing all
eighty two games. As you said, he was still a top eighty four
by ESPN's player rankings by their default setups. So even in what was a
regression year for him, he was still like a number seven, number eight
forward in twelve team leagues. So, as you said, if there's another
year of chemistry, if the power plays a little bit better, I think
the power play is something that that we probably should have seen coming last year.
But it does make a huge difference. He went from Colorado in twenty
and two years ago, who led the league in power play opportunities per game,
and I don't think it was particularly close either. They're like point two
opportunities higher than the next closest team, which is a lot. He went
from that to the middle of the pack, and that's a lot of power
play time miss. It's about a minute per game, and when average that
out by what he can produce, that's five or six power play points lost
just by power play opportunity differences. And that's nothing to do with what happens
on the ice when the power play actually starts. That's just what the team
does it even strength, unless they start drawing some more penalties, I think
they'll be in tough And I think the other thing that he said about maybe
a lack of supporting cast around him does hurt. I've seen in training camp
so far they've had Huberto up with Elia Slnholme, which would tell me Manchapani's
probably playing with Cadgrey. But then who's the third guys. It gonna be
like Blake Coleman or de la Dube or is it going to be? I
saw pell Jay's playing with Kevin Rooney, so it doesn't seem like Jacob Pellichay's
very high on their depth chart right now. So it is who are as
linemates are going to be. I think that is a really big question.
But he can bring so many shots, and he was flirted with one hundred
hits last year. Even if he only puts up eighty, that's fine.
If you can put up two hundred and forty shots, eighty hits, twenty
five goals, thirty assists, that's probably that's easily a top one hundred four
in most fantasy for at top seventy five, depending on how your scoring goes.
I just think it's not that unpredicting, like he'll return to form and
push ninety points or something like that. I just think that he's just a
tremendous value based by his ADPs right now, where he doesn't really even have
to improve on last year to pay off where he's being drafted, and I
think he's definitely one of those guys that you want to grab at the end
of the draft. Maybe you have some injury risks at center, maybe you
have some guys that are unproven, you're not sure how they'll do. Not
a bad idea to grab Kadrie if you're in some medium size twelve team league
towards the end of the draft, just as a safety valve that you can
plug in case things go wrong with the guys that you did pick higher than
him. Jacob McDonald, this one's a pole. Michael I like this one.
He's been a journeyman in his pro career, a San Jose defenseman.
He's average twelve fifty average timinis in one hundred and one NHL games. Enters
this season at age thirty, and his games played have been spread over four
years on three franchises. Eighteen points in those hundred and one games, with
a shot and hit per game. What is getting mister McDonald onto your radar?
What are you expecting from him this year? I've heard of writing about
fantasy hockey means you have to write about all thirty two teams, but unfortunately
that includes the San Jose Sharks this year. It's just a lack of options
on the blue line. Eric Carlson's gone and there's just no one else around.
Henry Throne is the prospect that everybody is talking about. It and I
agree he is the power play defenseman of the future for them. How far
into the future, I guess we'll find out. It might only be a
year or two. But there's two things that I think hurt Thron's case,
at least for game one of the regular season to be the top power play
defenseman. First is, the team has eight NHL defenseman under contract. Now
they have the cap space to just wave somebody and stuff them in the HL
or whatever, so they can do that if Thron pushes his way onto the
team. But that kind of tells me that maybe Throne starts in the HL
this season, maybe something like Cam York did last year, which has spend
maybe October November or half November at first ten or fifteen games with and then
gets called up. The other thing about McDonald is he actually got the second
most power play minutes behind Eric Carlson last year in San Jose, which there
are a lot of times Eric Carlson was just playing both halves of the power
play anyway, So what the second most power play minutes in San Jose were
worth. It wasn't very much, but they did that because he was running
the power plays in the HL, and he had done that for years for
the Bear not only for the Barracout, but wherever else he was. I
think it was Colorado last year, the Colorado Eagles last year. So he
was running the power play in the HL, and if you look at his
goal scoring, he had something like sixty goals in two hundred and thirty HL
games. Like this was a defenseman that can score goals. I don't think
he can do that at the NHL level, but clearly, at least in
the minors, the coaches saw something in him to run power plays and to
do a year after year, and then the San Jose Sharks saw the same
thing when he made his way over from Colorado to where he was running the
second power play and whenever Eric Carlson needed a little rest. So I think
he's first in line just to jump up to the top power play at least
to start the season, maybe the fifteen or twenty games. And the thing
is he's You're right, he is a journeyman. But if you look at
some of his metrics, they're not that bad. Like he has like good
zone exit numbers, which means he can help move the pop cleanly and has
been able to show it to do that in small samples, whether in Colorado
or in San Jose. Less so in Colorado obviously, but if you're playing
with Devin Taves and kil McCarry and mombarro and those guys are going to be
doing it for you, right. But he was also good defensively, so
I think this is a guy who at least can make the first pass,
who's good at his own end, and has run in ram power plays for
years in the HL. I think Jacob McDonald is one of those guys that
could maybe have the power plays through October and November before Throne comes up and
takes it from him. Maybe he just keeps it the whole season. But
I think considering he's going to be free in almost any draft you do,
outside of drafts that are five hundred players deep for a deep or type format,
I think he's the guy to have as a last defenseman on the bench.
What the top power play guy in San Jose is actually worth. It
may not be a lot, might only be ten or twelve points over the
course of the season, but those power play points are better than nothing when
you need when you when you're looking at your seventh three defenseman in a sixteen
team league or something like that. Yeah, I appreciate this take. I
also think that it might not be worth that much because it might just be
so dire there. And I know that Quinn was talking just yesterday as we're
recording this about all options are on the table and even five forwards. So
it's definitely he might get the role and run with it. It might be
really good, and you're not investing much either way, so if it's not
good, you can always drop him. It's no big deal. But yeah,
I like, I'm eager to see how it plays out. The next
guy, I'm really eager to see how he can do, and that's Marco
Rossi. According to Michael Russo, Rossi changed his skating stride in the offseason
put on fifteen pounds of muscle. He is not a very tall guy that
maybe I'm not sure where all that muscle went, but his legs are very
strong and powerful, and a lot was made in the in the off season
about the single assist he had in just in nineteen NHL games, But I
thought he showed pretty well. Did Rossi in his limited opportunity. He's been
killing it in the HL for the past two seasons, but just twenty one
NHL games under his belt. The centers ahead of him are Hartman, Jill
Ericson Eck and Frederick Goodreau. I don't think these are insurmountable roadblocks. So
what do you think we can expect from Rossi this season? Mike Yeah.
I have to say it was a little disheartening to see Ryan Hartman back up
with Kaprazoff for the first day of training camp and Rossi was I think he
was with Marcus Felino on what would be their third line. But I don't
I agree with you. I don't think it would take a lot for Rossy
to overtake Hartman and be the center for Kirol Kaprasoff. I think there's obviously
there's a really good reason why it's probably going to take him this long to
really make a him packed at the NHL. Like you can't like with bow
and Byron, where you can't talk about him without talking about concussions, I
don't think you can talk about Rossi without talking about the COVID complications he had.
When you're nineteen twenty years old and you lose an entire year of development
because of a health problem, and it's not like where it was a broken
leg, where all you need is just the bone to heal and then you're
right back at it. I think anybody that's had issues with COVID would probably
be able to tell you that even if you're quote over it, you're still
not quite one hundred percent healthy. And there's a big difference between somebody and
a forty five year old accountant going to work and a twenty year old going
to play in the best hockey league in the world. You have to be
at your absolute peat physical ability to do well, and I'm wondering if it
didn't take him even another year to really get back to where he needed to
be, And I think that's why he added so much muscle in one offseason,
basically the first time he's really I'm thinking it's basically the first time he's
really been able to be himself in the off season in a number of years
now, and I think we should probably be a little bit more lenient with
him because of that. Like I said, it's not as if he just
broke his ankle and needed to come back in six months or something like that.
It was the fact that it took him at least six months to get
back on the ice, let alone get back to where he should be as
a player. And I'm with you. I thought he looked fine in his
brief stint. Obviously he didn't excel production wise, but if you can produce
as well as he did in the HL, be as highly touted as he
is, show as well as he has just about everywhere that he's gone,
I have to think that it was just playing against the lower competition made it
easier for him, even though he wasn't in his peak physical condition. Hopefully
now he is. I think he's a guy if there's a guy that's gonna
push Connorbert Dart for the Calder Trophy. If Connorbert Dart for whatever reason has
a bad season, maybe he has an injury, it keeps him out thirty
games, like happened with Connor McDavid's rookie year or something like that, I
think Rossi's one of the guys that can win the Calder Trophy because, like
you said, there's not that much for robe. They don't want to use
Joel Eric Sinec with Carol Kaprizoff because they want to use Eric Sink in a
shutdown role because that's what he sells at and he is one of the best,
one of the best in the league at it. All he has to
do really is overtake Ryan Hartman, and I like Hartman as a player.
I've liked him for a long time. I don't think he's not a top
line center. I think Rossy is, and I don't think it'll be very
long before Rossi is not only skating with kaprisoff at even strike but also on
the power play. I think he just has tremendous, tremendous upside for the
season. He's still just He's only turning twenty two years old this weekend,
and if you think that he lost at least one year, if not two,
of development to those complications that he had, basically he's basically where he's
at where he should have been as a twenty year old right now. I
just think the world of him. I think he's just a tremendous player that
just really needed some time to get his health right, and it appears that
he's in that place now. He's one of those guys that I think he's
could be a I think he could be a threat for the Calder Trophy,
even if the Dart stays healthy, because if Rossi ends up on kil Kapazov's
line by the end of October, he could easily have a sixty point season.
If not a lot more Taylor Hall, he's gonna turn thirty to the
season. Mike, former number one overall pick, is on his sixth NHL
franchise, looking to play likely some first line left wing for the Chicago Blackhawks.
He's been over a point per game only four times in his NHL career.
Can you believe that in last in an injury marred twenty eighteen nineteen.
If you want to count that short season, that shouldn't be a knock on
the guy. What do we expect? But it just surprises me. He's
got a Heart Trophy in his case, and he played a complimentary role,
more of a depth role for the Bruins last couple of years. Likely back
in the Lime Light, probably going to be on a lot of national TV
playing next to Connor Bedard in the near future. What are you expecting out
of Taylor Hall this year? How should he be valued in fantasy hockey?
So? I think his stint in Boston I think could mislead a lot of
people when it comes to Taylor Hall because, like you said, he was
more of a support role. He wasn't in a feature role. He played
three minutes less per game in Boston than he did in New Jersey. And
that's just a bassive difference, right, Like you're losing fifteen percent, if
not more, of your ice time. It's gonna just nuke your totals.
The other thing about Taylor Hall is like byrom you want to separate out his
production by line meets, And I did that over at Dauber Hockey a couple
of weeks ago. I looked at his production in Boston when he was playing
with David Pasternak and his production in Boston when he was playing with anybody else.
And when he was playing with David Pasternak, he put up the same
points per minute rate as Miko Ranton in Colorado. When he wasn't playing with
Pasternak, it was more like Brian rust type production. And the reason for
that is when he wasn't playing with David Pasternak, he was in the bottom
six, right, he was playing with Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederick and Aj
Greer and all these guys like not bad players, but obviously not David Pasternach
can Patrice Bergeron. So one thing I always try to remember about players when
I'm doing any type of analysis. It's something I heard years ago, and
it's it goes like this, It's there are no harder minutes for a hockey
player than minutes played with bad line mates. And not that those guys in
Boston are bad players, obviously they're very good players. But they're not David
Pasternak, they're not Brad Marsh and they're not Patrice Bergeron, and they're not
connorber Dark. And I don't know why people are, Like I've seen Connorbert
Dark go twentieth overall in a Best Ball draft, which is absolutely absurd.
To pay that off, you would need probably a forty five You would need
to taste Thompson season like he had last year, like forty five goals,
forty five assists or something like that. If people think connorber Dark can do
that, then why is Hall going like two hundred and thirtieth or whatever it
is. He's the fifty second winger off the board by adp On underdog,
the one hundred and twenty sixth forward, so a bench forward in a twelve
team league depending on how many how many forwards you start. If Connorbert Dart
is going to have a forty or forty five goal season, which is like
a bad pastor NACT season. Like I just said, Taylor Hall produced similarly
to Miko Ranton in on a per minute basis with David Pasternach. Why can't
Hall do that with the dark? So I think this could be a season
where we look back and Taylor Hall finishes with twenty two goals and seventy three
points or something like that, and we all think where did that come from?
And it's going to be the fact that he's playing nineteen minutes a night,
that he's playing with connorber Dart and even strengthened on the power play.
The only thing for him is being able to stay healthy. He wasn't able
to last year. He was able to the year before. If we can
get eighty games out of him, I definitely think Taylor Hall can reach seventy
point mark. Yeah, I agree, I agree to Like in redraft,
Connor Berdard is not someone I'm probably gonna touch. He's just going way too
high. I'm gonna draft right now, We're at pick thirty three and he's
still there and he probably won't be there too much longer. But I'm not
going to take him because, yeah, the options there are too good.
But his linemates and the peripheral cast, I think you gotta bump up a
little bit because they can see some tremendous value there. So definitely agree with
that. Let's talk about the second to last one here in the West,
and this is a goalie, Joel Hofer, and he's twenty three years old,
six foot five, coming into his third season getting He was mainly getting
HL staffs, but he did see some NHL action last season. Over three
seasons in Utica and Springfield, Hofer improved his GA and saved percentage each year.
He managed the six NHL starts, as I mentioned, winning three of
his first four games and that fourth one being a shootout loss. The last
two games Hofer would probably like to have back, especially the one on March
twenty six where he got run out of the crease with five goals and six
hundred sixteen by the Kings. Certainly, we know that Bennington has been trending
down and the last basically since he won the Cup, and he's been pretty
bad, but he does have the contract. I'm just wondering, though,
do you think, Mike, that Joel Hofer can pull up Bennington on Jordan
Bennington. Yeah, I'm glad you put it like that because I think that's
exactly what I had to mind here, is that he'll do to Bennington with
Bennington did to Jake allenback when they made their Cup run. You're right that
Bennington has that big contract, so obviously they want to try to make it
work with him. But I also think if you read any of the GM's
quotes, like the GM had quotes this week, it was he said something
like, we have no equity left with the organization, with our fans,
like the Cup was four years ago. Now, we haven't won much since.
We have to get back to our winning ways. They went got Kevin
Hayes in the offseason. Now, while going to get Kevin Hayes doesn't don't
start playing the parade, what it does tell me is that they wanted to
reload their depth with serviceable middle six guys and not just send up a bunch
of young players to try to develop them. That tells me that they want
to return to the postseason. They don't want to just have another middling year
where they finished twenty first in the NHL. And what that tells me is
that Bennington probably doesn't have a lot of leash. If he comes out of
the gate and he doesn't have very good numbers after his first eight, ten,
twelve starts, They're gonna have to turn to Joel Hofer if they want
to get back to the postseason. So it's one of those situations where I'll
freely admit I'm lot a goalie scout, like I don't know the finer technical
points of goaltending, but I do know that team wants to get back to
the playoffs. Like you said, Bennington's been on a pretty much just a
downward trajectory ever since that Cup season. I think it's five on five say
percentage has gone down every year since. His goal saved above expected has gone
down nearly every year since. He just hasn't been good at all. And
if his tense start rolls around and he's got like an eight ninety one say
percentage, I think it's gonna be Joel Hofer time. And how good St.
Louis is actually going to be I think it's a fair question to add,
but I'll tell you right now, I would much rather take Joel Holfer
as my fourth goalie than I would want to take Jordan Bennington as a high
end backup in fantasy that I just don't think the value was there to make
that work. Nikolai Eelers, now you're singing my tune, Mike, I
love this guy. You don't have to do much to convince me that this
Winnipeg winger is just due for a season of everything coming together. Dubois Wheeler
need a writer, have moved out from among Winnipeg's top forwards, presumably leaving
even more opportunity. In eight years in Winnipeg, he has scated sixteen thirty
six a night on average, and last year it was just fifteen thirty nine.
He's lost games to injury, a lot of games to injury for the
last five years, so health obviously is going to be key. What kind
of upside do you see for Nikolai Eelers this year? Yeah, I think
when we talk about his twenty two twenty three season, you have to talk
about that injury, right, because yes, his ice time was completely nuke,
but that only happened once he returned from injury. In January. He
got injured. I think it was the second or third game of the season
was he had I'm just checking his game log now. The second game of
the season he played nearly twenty two minutes. It seemed like they were going
to lean on him. Then he got injured. Maybe he wasn't as good
as he could be when he came back, and that's why he was only
playing fourteen fifteen minutes at night most times. But the thing with Eilers is
he just needs that ice time. He's been one of the most efficient point
producers in the NHL for five years now. He's always not right at the
top, but pretty close to it, if not that far behind, and
points per minute at even strength, it's just that he only gets maybe thirteen
even strength minutes at the most, rather than fourteen, fifteen, sixteen for
some guys. He just hasn't been getting that ice time. I'm wondering if
now is not the time for that to happen, because they don't really have
a lot of They've had a pretty bad bottom six for a number of years
now. I don't think this season's going to be any different. I think
they're really going to have to lean on their top six, like Colorado did
last year, though that was more due to injury than anything. But I
think you're going to see a number of guys in Winnipeg's top six all over
the twenty minute mark, especially the power play guys, just because they don't
have any other options. But Eilers generates a ton of shots. He always
has great shot volume on a per minute basis always very efficient with his production.
He's just been often kept off the power play. That's the big problem
here. It's I hate to keep harping on the same thing, but it's
just so important for a player's fantasy value to be able to produce on the
power play. Now, he should be there this season because they did move
out du Ba, they did move out Wheeler. The only guy they brought
in that is a real threat would be Gay Vlarity. So if you see
Schifle and Kyle Connor there probably cold praffiti. I think it makes a lot
of sense to have Nikola Eilers as the fourth. But that's going to be
the crux to all this is if Eilers can get that top power play time,
then yes, he's going to be a tremendous fantasy value. Where he's
being drafted, He's been he's like one hundred and twentieth forward off the board
on ESPN. He's only a low third winger on Underdog. He's not being
drafted highly there at all. Either. If he's playing nineteen twenty minutes at
night with top power play time, like he could easily put up a ninety
point seasons, I think he's definitely one of those guys I want to take
in the back half of drafts to hope that this is final of the season
where he can play eighty games nineteen minutes a game, top power play time,
and really show the upside that he's been that he's been teasing us with
for like I said, for about five years now, I can't even blame
palm or reesport anymore. That makes me so mad. All right, let's
take a brief break, come back and go to the Eastern Conference. La,
La, there's a weapon that you've gone nay. We talked about the
West now looks the eight picker. I think you have our first contestant up
with it. I sure do, and it's one Michael Matherson. We're going
to start with him best point total and point pace of his career thirty four
points in forty eight games extrapolates to a fifty eight point pace, which is
definitely double what he has done in some of his seasons, a little bit
less than double compared to last season. The question, the legit question,
is is he really helping out there, and he's His underlyings are actually pretty
good in terms of his defensive and offensive impacts, actually surprisingly expected goals for
and COURSI is pretty low on the power play, which is a bit surprising.
But you know a lot of this damage that Matheson did was without Cool
Caufield in the lineup, who's obviously a big part of being able to score
there. And you wonder what he's going to be able to do moving forward
with this team. Certainly this season it seems like there's no challenges, but
down the road there are some Lane Hudson, David Reinbacher problems and even someone
like Kayden Gooley. I don't know, maybe there's some potential competition there,
but I'm assuming it's Matheson's blue line and power play to patrol a mantra all
this season, So I think we can expect some pretty decent things from him.
And it sounds like you agree, Mike. What do you think we
can expect from Mathison this season, but then also will his value persist beyond
this one? Yeah, I think that's the bigger question is what is his
value going to be in innkeeper dynasty type formats. I don't think it's the
same as this season. This season, there's just no competition for him for
top power play minutes. Laid Hudson, I don't think he's gonna be on
the team this year. They're gonna obviously they're gonna give him another year.
Ryan Boker is not going to be there. I think Jordan Harris might be
a guy that could push him for time eventually, that of the guys that
are on the roster. But that's about it. Like, as long as
Matheson is healthy for this season, he's going to be running the top power
play. He did have a big jump in per game production last year,
like you said, by far the best of his career. But it was
a confluence of two things. One was the most minute he had ever played
before. He's at twenty four and a half minutes last year. The previous
two previous three seasons he was between eighteen and nineteen minutes, So he basically
added six minutes of ice time in one season per game, which is a
lot. The other is finally running the top power play. I'm just looking
at his numbers right now. From twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, I
spanned two hundred and fifty two games, he had eleven power play points.
Just last year loan, in forty eight games, he had nine. Running
the top power play makes a huge difference. So if he's I think he's
gonna be playing a lot of minutes again, maybe not pushing for twenty five
minutes, but I definitely think he's gonna be in the twenty three to twenty
four minute range. I've long thought he's been a pretty good defenseman, like
a toolsy type defenseman that just needed time to figure it out and put it
all together. Like he can skate well, he can pass well. He
has good vision, which is sometimes he'd make some pretty obvious mistakes that would
cause turnovers and cause goals against and things like that, and I think that's
what drove his coach is crazy. But I think he's not necessarily fix that
with maturity, but it's certainly gotten a lot better in fantasy, Like you
have the top power play defenseman I think, aside for Matthison, I think
Montreal is going to be a better offensive team than people are giving them credit
for. Like Marty Tennis Saint Louis he has been playing. I want like
the Saint Louis Blues played in those twenty nineteen twenty twenty seasons, where they
might not put up huge shot volume numbers, but they always create a lot
of quality chances on the shots that they do get, and I think Mattheson's
gonna be able to reap the rewards off that, both in goals and an
assists. I actually have I finalize my rankings yesterday. The last thing I
have to do is to add in rookies. But Matthieson graded out is my
number twenty defenseman in multi CAAP formats. Depending on what site you're drafting him
and what you're drafting room is and all that, you can get him anywhere
between the fortieth and sixtieth defenseman off the board, like he's just not being
drafted. And even if I'm way too bullish on him, I still think
he's gonna easily be at top forty defenseman in MULTIICAP formats this season. Even
if the Montreal Power play isn't very good because all you need really from him
is about fifteen powerplay points and with his peripherals, they'll do the rest of
the value forim. So I just think he's probably one of the better defense
values that's available right now. And I'm drafting him in basically every lead that
I've done because I asked, like he said, I have him ranked pretty
highly and he's just not going anywhere close to that. So you can wait
till the sixteenth, seventeenth round or whatever and then grab him and you're getting
a number one power play defenseman who has fifty point potential and could put up
triple digit hits and triple digit blocks and get up close to two hundred shots
and all those things. So I just think he's just one of the best
values in fantasy hockey this offseason and needs a defenseman that I want on every
single team I have. Love it Boone Jenner. He has long been a
solid guy in the Columbus Blue Jackets lineup, skates over twenty minutes a night,
nearly two hits three shots tonight to go along with twenty six schools nineteen
assists for forty five points in sixty eight games last year. Bad news is
he has missed some time. He's missed fifty two games collectively over the past
three years. What are you expecting from Boone Jenner next year and what makes
him a value in fantasy? Well, the first thing is, like Mattheson,
is he's just not being drafted highly. I did a Best Ball draft
a couple of days ago, and I got him in the very last round.
It was like one hundred and seventy first pick overall or something like that.
So he's just he's and he's not a top fifty center off the board.
So if you're starting three centers in twelfteen league, he's a bench center.
So he's just not being drafted. And I get it. You mentioned
the back injuries and those are that's certainly a huge concern, Like something could
flare up at the end of October and he ends up with eleven games played
this season, maybe something bad like Shawkatory and Mark Stone or something like that,
and then he's just not a good fantasy value to anyone. But there's
a couple of things here. The first is the team just doesn't have the
centers yet. Obviously Adam Fantilty's there, and he's going to be a superstar
in fairly short order. I just think asking Fantility to be the number one
center on that top power play right now, because faceofts on the power play
matter quite a bit, and I think having Adam Fantilly taking center or taking
faceoffs as the center on the power play is just asking for a lot of
lost possessions and that's just something any coach will not stand. So unless Fantility
can show right out of the gate that he can win faceoffs at a fifty
three or fifty four percent clip, which I really doubt he'll be able to
as an eighteen year old rookie, I just don't see him being the center
for the top power play. And there's just no one else like Ken Johnson's
not going to do it, Jack Roswick's not going to do it. Obviously,
They're not gonna be Sean Coraley on the power play, etc. Etc.
There's just no center depth there, so some one of those lack of
options type things. He's a guy where if he does play a full season,
he can score thirty goals because he shoots so much and gets those power
play minutes and play so much. Just in general, he's gonna be on
the top line. They haven't skating with Johnny Goodrow in training camp. I
don't see any reason why that would change until later in the season. Maybe
they move Vntilly with him or something like that. But he's gonna be at
the very least he's gonna be. He's gonna be in the top six.
He's gonna play a lot of minutes. He's gonna be on the power play.
He brings the peripherals like he shoots, he hits, he brings all
that. I'll just think he's such a tremendous draft value right now that he's
one of those guys that I'm drafting as my very last center in those mid
range leagues where there's two hundred and fifty players drafted, He's the guy that
I'm drafting is the last center in a lot of them. I definitely agree
with that. And I just wanted to mention that I got Matheson and the
best ball I'm doing right now at one forty six, great value. And
this next guy we're going to talk about at one ninety one, and that
is Cam York And so I think that's really good value. So I'm already
gonna say I agree with you, But just to give a little background on
York, the Flyers had the worst power play last year fifteen point six percent
conversion, only thirty five power play goals across the entire team. The powerplay
option the main one there. Tony D'Angelo went back to Carolina, so prime
opportunity. There's certainly the lack of other options there, so obviously there aren't
too many amazing fullwords, Mitchkoff is not going to be there yet and so
it may not be the most amazing powerplay. But York when his sophomore season
featured a small drop in powerplay time but game enhanced. But the enhanced rate
stats in five on five are pretty well across the board. Maybe now is
the time to invest in Cam York long term if you haven't already in three
years, can we expect maybe some dynamic duos to take the league by storm
with some situation with Cam York and some of these strong forwards that they have
there as one of the questions. Obviously down the road, we're thinking,
maybe Mitchkoff is going to light up and Cam York can be the power play
quarterback. I guess that remains to be seen. But for this season,
what do you think about York and the kind of powerplay situation there in general
for the Flyers. Yeah, I think a big thing for the Flyers is
just the health of Sean Contourier. Right. It's tough to talk about them
and without talking about him, because when he's at his best, he is
a true number one center in the NHL. Right, it's just after the
year off with a back injury. He's into his thirties. Now, is
he going to be at his best? That's the big question. If Sean
Contourier starts the season and he looks like the guy he was four years ago
or three years ago, that's just tremendous news for everybody on the Flyers,
Travis Knectney and Andel Fairbe, certainly cam York. As he mentioned, Tony
d'angelo's gone. So there's just really no one there who's gonna take top power
play minutes from him, right. I know Rasmus ris Line got power play
minutes down the stretch at the end of last season. I just don't think
he's going to be the one to run the power play game in and game
out. Maybe he might get he did get some NetFront time they used him
in the way Boston used the Dano charo once upon a time. But Cam
York's he's going to be the guy to run the top power play unit with
John Tortorella there, I was real scared how Kim York might actually fair.
But he was one of the younger guys along with Noah Cats that seemed to
earn Tortorella's trust as the year went on, and by the end of the
season, York was playing twenty one to twenty two minutes a night, lack
of options and all that, But it's not they brought in Sean Walker and
Mark Stall like those are if York's playing well, those aren't guys that are
going to take a lot of minutes away from him, right, So there's
just not a whole lot of competition there from him. I think the big
thing to note with him is that even with Tortorella coming in and really stressing
good work in his own end, and he was good in his own end.
I think that's something that I think that's the reason why Tortorella trusted him,
because he defended the blue line very well, He got out of the
zone cleanly, very well. He did the things that would limit chances against
and that's why he was playing nearly twenty two minutes by the end of the
season, even though he started the year in the AHL. I just think
he's going to be the guy on the blue line for them in fairly short
order, and he's certainly going to be the guy to run the top power
play unit. And like I said, if Sean Couturier is back to where
he was, I think Travis Knnecny is one of the most underrated wingers in
the entire league. I think they'll be able to cobble together. Certainly not
a good power play, but definitely better than what it was last year.
And you're with a couple more minutes per game. If he's around twenty one
minutes a game, he can push for triple digit hits. He can probably
put up like one hundred ten, one hundred and twenty blocks, so he's
not gonna hurt you that much in multiicat formats. I just think he's a
guy that could probably get up to that forty forty five point mark, but
also brings some decent peripherals. Maybe not a ton of shots, but definitely
blocks and hits. And I think it just makes him a good value all
over the place. Something would have to I think something will have to go
very wrong with his season and the Flyer season for him to not be running
the power play all year long. Oliver Walstrom he messed up his knee halfway
through last year and could be an afterthought to drafters coming into this upcoming year.
That said, the Aisles winger across four seasons has He's neither ever played
nearly every game nor scored even a half point per game in his career.
He's pretty consistent with his peripherals, a hit and a half, two shots
per game the half season he did play, and the last chunk of the
season before he went out he was with Matt Barzol, which is pretty nice.
But power play tim and ice has been tough to come by. What
are you expecting from Oliver Wallstrom and how highly should we value him in fantasy
drafts? If you had asked me this question five days ago, I would
have had probably had a different answer. And then I saw the training camp
lines that the Islanders have been running, and I think he was. He's
been with Casey Cezekis and Simon Holdstrom all three days in training camp, so
far, and that's just not good news. My hope was that he would
somehow get to the top line with Barzol and Horvat. It certainly doesn't look
like it's going to happen out of the gates. Depending on just how deep
the league, your fantasy league is, I think he could. He's probably
somebody you just leave on the waiver wire now. But as you mentioned,
two shots per game and one and a half hits per game while playing twelve
minutes a night is just outstanding peripheral production on a per minutent basis. This
is a guy, excuse me, this is a guy who could probably put
up like a two hundred and fifty shot one hundred and fifty hit season if
he was only playing seventeen eighteen minutes a night, Like he doesn't need twenty,
even just seventeen or eighteen. It just really doesn't look like he's going
to get there. To start the season, Stuck on the I would call
it the fourth line. I'm not sure they would, but stuck on the
fourth line to start the year almost certainly the second power play unit. It's
just a role, isn't there for him? Right now? I think he's
still a guy that's putting all those skills together. I talked about Mike Mathenson
being a tools he defenseman. Oliver Walstrom seems like one of those tools.
He forwards like he has the shot you want, he has the aggressiveness that
you want. He's people might see him as a goalscorer, but he's a
very tenacious winger when he wants to be. So I think he has all
those qualities that you want. I just don't. It just doesn't look like
the role is going to be there for him just yet. So it was
a lot of wishful thinking for me in the offseason. Maybe they run at
bars All, horvat Walstrom top line, and maybe they get there by December
or something like that. It doesn't look like it's going to be happening.
But this is a guy who has super high end per minute shot rates and
super high end per minute hit rates. He just doesn't play enough minutes.
And it's a question of is anybody on the Islanders going to hit their fantasy
upside right other than that one huge season Matt bars All had as a rookie
a few years ago. Like, how many guys outside of their goalies can
you say have really hit their fantasy upside. Maybe Noah dabs in it as
a twenty year old or twenty one year old defenseman. Other than that,
it's just been a lot of underwhelming seasons. So it's a combinations. Is
it the right environment for him, is he going to get the role,
is he going to earn the coaches trust? I just think there are a
lot of roadblocks for him right now. So unless it's an incredibly I'm still
excited about him. In keeper in dynasty formats, especially dynasty formats like this
is a guy like I would be holding onto him until he's either on the
top line or he's in the cage all four years from now or something like
that. Right this is not a guy because, like I said, his
per minute peripheral production is just way, way too good to give up on.
It's just a matter of when he gets the role, and it just
doesn't look like it's going to happen out of the gate this season. Let's
just hope it happens maybe around American Thanksgiving or something like that. Yeah,
you're gonna you're gonna write him to the grave. You can stay on that
train. I know his underlyings look good. But I personally am not with
you on on Waltz From, but I do that his numbers look good,
and I actually turned that into a couple of the pieces were involved. But
I was able to troll wals From in a couple of other pieces into Timomeyer
in one Dynasty league because people were enamored with those underlying So sometimes it can
be a good thing, as like a trade asset. Sometimes those rate stats
never fully materialized, right. I hope for a whiles from stake that it
does, but I'm just becoming more and more skeptical as time goes on.
We'll see. Let's move on to the next guy, and that's Joseph Wall.
He is obviously goalie for Toronto case people didn't know, but he is
going to be there with Samsunoff, and they obviously recently signed Martin Jones,
and that's going to be a fun experiment for the Maple Leafs. I know
that samsun Off was the guy. When you look at the underlyings for goal
save above expected, Samsonov was actually really incredible, almost sixteen goals save above
expected in his forty two Experience appearances last season. Eric Shaalgren, who has
moved on was also pretty decent, but Wall was right there at three point
four goals above expected, and his delta Fenwick was actually way better than Samsonov's
in his limited seven appearances. I don't trust Martin Jones at all, and
I don't know that the coaching staff does too much and give him some opportunity.
But if they both Sampsonof and Joanes struggle, I don't think that they'll
hesitate too much to look to Wall because he's someone that they have a little
bit more invested in long term. So I'm wondering how you're reading this Toronto
situation. Obviously Samsonov is probably going to get the first NOD and but it
maybe he doesn't represent value for where people might be drafting a goalie. What
is your take, Mike, Yeah, I think the investment is part of
it. We talked about that with Jordan Bennington and his contract, and that's
why he might get some run out of the gate from Saint Louis because they
really want to make that money work. It's the opposite in Toronto, right,
three and a half million dollars for just this season for sampson Off and
then he's an unrestricted free agent. Now. It's a new GM in Toronto,
but they're not typically a team that will go and spend a lot of
money on a goalie, So I don't know if they would after the season
unless Sampsonof just has a Besna caliber season, I don't know that they're going
to break the bank for him as a UFA. So I don't think they
really care if he plays sixty games and is awesome for them, rate he
only plays twenty five games and isn't very good, I don't think they care
very much. They just want any one of their goalies to play well.
You mentioned Samsonof forty two appearances. I think forty starts last year. It
still doesn't have a season with forty one starts, which would be half the
season. He didn't play half the season in the shortened bubble season either.
Like, is Samsonov gonna get to fifty starts this year? I think is
one of those questions. And even if he gets to fifty, that leaves
thirty two other starts. And something that I write about at Dauber Hockey is
when I'm drafting my fantasy teams and I'm getting to my third and fourth goalies,
I would rather have the backup on a good team than the starter on
a bad one. I'd rather have Wall than I would have any goalie in
San Jose Rights or any goalie in Chicago. That's just the way it is.
And they're not married to Samsonov, so it's say, it's the same
thing. It's the same thing with Bennington, even though the contract situations are
different. Samsonov starts for seven out of the first eight games and he's got
an eight ninety say percentage. It's Joseph waltime. He might be the guy
from there on out. Martin Jones does complicate things. But if it gets
to the point where Martin Jones is getting regular starts for the Toronto may belief,
something has gone horrifically wrong with their season. So I'm not that concerned
about him. Like maybe he gets a start in November and then a couple
starts in January, but if he has more than ten starts this year,
something, like I said, something has gone terribly wrong. So he's not
a guy I'm really that concerned about. I think it's more just have him
around in case one of the guys gets hurt, so then you then you
have a veteran backup NHL goalie. He's not the guy that I'm concerned with
taking starts, but there's some underperformance or something like that. So I just
think Samsonov hasn't had a big workload into season. Yet the team's not married
to him past the season. He's not making a lot of money while is
a guy that he has another year on his contract after this, and then
he's still a restrictive free agent, so he's going to be in the franchise
probably for at least two more seasons after this one. I just think they
have a lot more incentive to make it work with him than anybody else.
I don't think Martin Jones is a factor, so I don't want to take
sampson Off between the twentieth and twenty fifth goalies. I would rather wait ten
rounds or twelve rounds or whatever it might be in that fantasy draft and then
grab Wall as a late third or in early fourth goalie in my fantasy leagues.
Yeah, definitely here, Yet this is a capital span over here,
just chuckling at those teams that think that samson Off and Bandichek are going to
be able to take dominant starts for a year. There is traveled, there's
well traveled, and then there is David Perran traveled. That's a whole different
level for this guy. The wingers first season in Detroit was a slight step
back from his seventy point pace thirties two fifty six points in a full eighty
two. That could be a more Detroit problem than a Purran problem, to
be honest with you. He still gets good hits, good shots. Wouldn't
be hard to imagine an increase in points for Perran this year. How are
you valuing David Perran the Detroit Void winger? So I'm of two minds here.
One is I think he's just new due for natural positive regression, because,
like you said, he took a step back last year. But if
you look at some of the reasons why. His individual points percentage, which
is just the percentage of goals he gets a point on when he's on the
ice, it was fifty three percent last year. He hadn't been below sixty
percent in any season since the twenty thirteen lockouts, so it's been over a
decade and he's typically around sixty five percent. So those are that's one of
those stats that guys can't produce high numbers year after year, like Connor McDavid
will be around eighty percent year after year because he's Connor McDavid sold kill rolcaps
Off and all those types of guys. But for the non super league guys,
they're typically pretty stable. But then you'll just have wild fluctuations. So
there are seasons where David prom has been in the mid seventies and now he's
had one season where he's in the mid fifties. If he gets back to
sixty five percent, he could probably add five or six points by just natural
regression in individual points percentage alone. And then you look at his power play
production, it was a six year low and points per minute on the power
play by twenty eight percent, so wasn't just a six year low, it
was a six year low by far. But then the team went and added
Alex the brink Cat and Shane gost Despair and whatever people might think of Shane
gost Despair as an overall defense, and he's a guy that can run a
good top power play. I think that's a big boost for them on the
blue line for the top power play unit. And they add a real good
finisher and Alex to brink CAATs. So now all of a sudden, you
have Larkin, Pearan Raymond, the Brink Cat, and gost Despair that has
the makings of a decent power play unit. So I think there's gonna be
some regression positive regression in his power play production as well. Just the brain
Cat and gostep spaar making the power play better, and just a rebounding individual
points percentage has me giving him, has ME giving him a projection of over
sixty points. So I think David Prom is a sixty point threat this season.
And he's also a guy that can put up two hundred shots and one
hundred hits. He's just one of those boring one hundred and fiftieth pick two
hundred pick overall. Whatever it is in your particular draft that you can probably
plug in in case there's an injury, some results on your team, or
in case a younger guy underperforms or gets moved down the lineup or anything like
that, then you got David Prom waiting to go. And if the powerplay
is even better than we think it's going to be, he could probably be
a top one hundred player in multiicap formats. The one thing that concerns me
is him playing with Andrew Cops so far in training cam Copp was real bad
last season. He typically not been as good as a center as he has
been as a winger. If Cop doesn't turn to his game around and parn
is playing with him for sixty sixty five percent of the year, I have
some questions about how well he'll produce it even strength, but I do think
that he's in for some natural positive regression. I think sixty points is an
expectation for him if he can get back to the eighty game mark eighty games
played. So I really like David Pronze just one of those safety valve guys
that you take as insurance in case, like I said, in case one
of your younger wingers doesn't live up to expectations or somebody else gets hurt or
something like that. Yeah, definitely. And the last guy I'm gonna ask
you about mikey Asimott, and he's someone who was pretty traveled last year.
Before last season, he played one game exactly in the NHL, and he
played fifty four last season, split amongst Winnipeg, San Jose and Tampa Bay.
And he was all over the place on those teams in terms of deployment,
and obviously the depth chart and San Jose was pretty low when he was
there, but overall twenty three point pace in his two stints. But I
think the big thing is two hits, over two hits per game and over
two shots per game, and actually a decent number of blocks almost half a
block per game, which is pretty good peripheral coverage. He's an excellent play
driver. When you look at his underlines, he really is someone you can
put on a line and he can help give defensive responsibility. And you look,
the lines in Tampa are a little bit thinned out. Obviously, we
know that in the main four of point Kutra, Stamkos, even Hegel's in
that group now, but they might blend that top six and he might get
some opportunity in there. Obviously, other options are guys like Sherry Soarelli is
going to play center, and then Nick Paul Tenner one of those, one
of those guys is going to get some producing opportunities and it might be a
Smont. I'm guessing that's where you're going with this, some deployment with those
big four. What do you think about a Smont? First thinks first I
just think he just to talk about the bottom six. I think he's gonna
I was actually looking at the line combinations this morning and they had Sheery on
the second line with stamp cost and Soarelli and then on the third and Semon
on the fourth. But it just highlights their depth problem at that position.
Past Kutrov right, no offense to Connor Shery. I do like him as
a player. He's a guy I would probably want him my fourth line if
I was a Cup contender. I don't want him on my second line.
If I'm on Cup contender. I don't think Connor Shery's a long term answer
on that second line. The other thing is is I just think he's gonna
play his way ahead of Tanner j know, like he did that last year.
Now he can probably talk that out to Jau coming back from injury and
he wasn't the same guy. But Simon legitimately played well in Winnipeg, in
San Jose and in Tampa Bay, and you saw him get rewarded with that.
He got sent to the World Championships last year for Team USA. Now
I know World Championships, they're not sending their a roster maybe not even their
B roster. But just the fact that he made it there when he was
a guy that was on waivers like seven months earlier, should probably tell us
that he was a better player than maybe he got credit for earlier in his
career. He just two things. One is he shoots a lot. He
was tenth in the league. It's shot rate last year per minute in line
with guys like Tyler Toffoley and Nasm Caddri on a per minute pieces, so
he'll shoot a lot. And Walstrom even at twelve minutes at night, he
could probably put up two shots per game, which is useful enough in fantasy
when you're looking at in very deep leagues. He does drive the play extremely
while or he did last year. As you mentioned, The problem is,
I don't think he's a terribly skilled player. There's a difference between good four
checking, being able to clear the zone, meshing well with your teammates and
all that, and being able to actually score goals like those are two completely
different things. Simont did not have good shooting percentages in the HL, has
not had good shooting percentages in the NHL. I think he's probably a guy
that just won't ever score thirty goals unless something goes really really something really goes
his way gets really lucky for a year. But I just think the peripherals
and the hits that he can bring in deeper formats will certainly play well.
And I think he might be their second best right winger after Nikita Kutrop.
I think he's better this year. I think he's definitely better than Tanners,
you know, and they're gonna they're gonna try him out on the fourth line,
but we saw it last year. He just bul rushed his way to
their third line because he was playing better than anybody else that they had on
the roster. And I think that's going to be the case again this year.
I think he's in line for at least third line, and it's if
not getting up to the second line at times, because I could see him
just wreaking havoc on the four check with Anthony Sarelli. So he's a guy
that he really opened my eyes last year just to how good he is.
I don't know if he's ever going to be like a sixty five or seventy
point winger, but I think he's definitely a guy that can put up like
fifteen goals thirty five points in a minimal role. But then bring the periphles
in the shots and the hits that will play well, especially in salary cap
formats where he's so cheap. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the Drew
O'Connor portion of the program. Everybody shout out loud, what team Drew O'Connor
plays for? Nope, sorry, you're thinking of Logan O'Connor. Drew O'Connor
actually plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He is in his fourth year there.
The good news is this guy's rate stats are tremendous. His shots per sixty
at even strength for the Penguins last year was fourth out of twenty three qualifiers
on the team, and his hits per sixty what's six. The bad news
is he played below ten minutes a night. But what do you see for
Drew O'Connor for the coming year and why should I consider drafting him? The
first thing is he's it's that shot right, Like you mentioned, he just
put us up a lot of shots in a very low amount of minutes.
I was looking at his HL performance seventy three HL games, he had two
hundred forty five shots so over an eighty two game season, you're looking at
like two hundred and eighty shots or something like that. That's just monster shot
production. Now, obviously he's not gonna get there playing ten minutes a game,
which he has been so far at his Pittsburgh ten yere. But that
Jake Genzel injury I think is something to that we really have to mention here.
Now. Karl Dubis came out and said like a month ago that they
only expect him to maybe miss five games and then Getzel should be back.
So maybe Genzel's back on the top line by the end of October, right,
and it's no big deal. But injuries linger injuries. Guys have setbacks.
Guys aren't the same player that they are when they come back from injury.
We talked about Nikolai Eilers just earlier on this podcast. Look at what
happened to him last year, Right, played twenty two minutes, got hurt,
came back, and then was playing fourteen fifteen minutes a game. I
don't think that's gonna happen with Genzel. That's not what I'm assuming here.
It's just something that happens all the time with injuries. The shot rate is
one two is that opportunity. So far, I think in camp they've had
Vinnie Hinnis Strozza playing alongside Sidney Crosby, which kind of tells you that they're
really looking for guys to play alongside Sidney Crosby until Jake Getzel gets back.
I like Henna Stroza, I don't think he's the answer. He was a
guy that I was high on when he was in Arizona, and I thought
he might break through and Buffalo, but it just never materialized. And I'm
gonna be honest, if you're playing with Tage Thompson or Dylan Cousins or even
now Casey Middlestadd or whatever and you can't produce, I have real questions whether
Sidney Crosby, even Sidney Crosby at this point, is a guy that can
make Hitnistros and produced. I just don't think Hennistros is going to be the
answer there. And they just don't have a lot of options other than that.
Like they seem to want to put Riley Smith with a Genny Maulkin,
which I think makes sense because Riley Smith is is He's a good playmate.
I don't think he gets enough credit for that. So I think he can
help set up Mulkin, and he'll help Maulkin more in that sense than he
would help Crosby. I think putting Joe Connor would Crosby just makes a lot
of sense because O'Connor likes to shoot, and they need some guy that can
shoot, typically not a high percentage shooter. Hopefully Sidney Crosby can fix that.
We'll see how trading camp goes, but I don't think it'll be that
long until we see Droue connor skating with Sidney Crosby. Now whether that lasts
but won't last once Jake Gensel gets back. But again, if there's any
sort of setback with his injury, or maybe he has to take another couple
of weeks, maybe they expected five games miss but it's actually fifteen games missed.
I think due O'Connor could have some sneaky value at least through the first
couple of weeks this season, if not the first month, depending on how
things go with Gensel. And again in those salary cap formats where you're looking
for the real cheap guys that can produce even if you only get fifteen good
games out of him, I think Joe Connor is a guy that you'll want
to keep an eye on in Pittsburgh. Wonderful, wonderful deep digs on some
of these guys. Michael, why don't you tell people how they can keep
up with all of your work over at Dauber and anywhere else you want to
plug. Yeah, like you said, I write over at Dauber Hockey Dauber
hockey dot com. We have our fantasy Guide out. I contributed a few
parts to a Dauber still does most of the work himself, but it's over
at Dauber Hockey. So if you're looking for we have projections for several hundreds
of players. We have depth charts of prospect prospects that might make their way
up, sleepers and breakouts and disappointments and all that. Anybody needs some help,
just head on over Dabara hockey dot com. I have articles up every
Tuesday and Thursday morning, and then every other Friday if you're looking for my
specific days. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Victor and I are both
now at Lead Prospects, So I'm at ep ringside dot com. I believe
you have to have a membership there, but there are a lot of great
writers that make it and that make it very well worthwhile. I'll be there
a couple of times a week doing fantasy profiles and role changes and those types
of things, so you can catch me there. Lastly, once the season
gets started, I actually folk us on daily fantasy hockey more than anything else,
so draft kings and vandueling those types of things, and I do that
over at stochastic dot com. I usually I'll have articles and videos up usually
Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays at the very least, if not more,
throughout the week. Lots of ways to catch me and whether you're just looking
for season on fantasy or daily fantasy or what have you, I write about
it all. So a whole lot going on this season outstanding. Thank you
so much for coming on the show today. Yeah, thanks guys, Thanks
Jesse, thanks Victor. Appreciate you guys having me. Good luck to you
guys this season. I don't know what it is. I'm really excited for
this year. This is the most excited I've been for the start of a
hockey season, probably since before COVID, And maybe that's part of it,
is just a little bit of a return to normalcy. But yeah, I'm
really jazzed about this season. Good luck in your league and good luck well
good talking about some draft. It's almost draft time. We've been talking to
a lot of teams, but coming up a couple more teams, a whole
lot of draft talk. A couple of things to remind you of before we
get out of here today. Fantracks dot com is the place to play all
of your fantasy sports. They've got ten different ones, and if you're getting
ready to start a fantasy hockey league, if it's that time, you can
start yourself up a free one over at fan tracks. Got all the features
that you're gonna want, literally hundreds of scoring settings. Yes, if you're
sitting up a dynasty league, it's the place you're gonna want to go because
of the customization, the deep rookie pools, all those types of things.
I think right now too, there's a tweet out there that if you retweet
it, you can win an autographed Austin Matthews jersey. So that's pretty cool.
Good things for them to do. We are part of the Fantracks podcast
network. Fan tracks HQ is the content arm of fantracks, and they have
all kinds of cool stuff. They are fantasy hockey articles for days coming out
right now in the written form. You should check out some of the great
new authors that we have on the site. There are other podcasts, especially
fantasy football and fantasy baseball related that you can be checking out on the network
as well. We're part of the Dauber Podcast Network in addition to the Fantracks
one. And you heard Michael Clifford, a friend of ours from the Dauber
side of the house. Of course, Victor writes over there at Dauber you
should be listening to all the cool stuff they have there, including what Victor
does over at Dauber Prospects as an editor. Victor has a second podcast on
the Dauber Podcast Network. It's called Dauber Prospect Report, and he does it
with Peter Harling and they talk about all kinds of cool things on there.
It's a good compliment to what we do here on this show. I do
a second podcast it's called Dynasty Sports Life, and on it I do all
kinds of different dynasty sports, not just hockey, but baseball, basketball,
football. This week, I'm going to talking with a guy Ksey Bubba,
who is a man about town. He podcasts all over the place, he
writes all over the place, and he and I are going to look back
on the fantasy baseball season and see what we have learned, especially as it
might apply to our dynasty baseball league. So you can follow that dynasty sports
life out there wherever podcasts are sold. It's not sold, it's free,
but you know what I mean. Also, you should be following Victor and
myself on X at fan Hockey Life is me at Victor Nuno twelve as Victor.
You know, I'm starting to think people are always complaining that they call
it X. I think that complaining about Twitter being renamed X as the new
complaining about airplane food from jokes of twenty five years ago. That's just my
opinion. Also, you should rate reviews, subscribe to this podcast. There
are many places you can do it. You could do it over on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcast. Thank you for listening.
We're ready for you to draft. We're ready to draft ourselves and until
next time, Until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey alife.